Archive for River Phoenix

I realize my last post came off as very snobby. Sorry. I’m sitting in Seattle’s Best in Borders and writing again. Is it normal to update a blog all the freaking time? I keep having ideas in my head and I keep feeling like sharing them though no one is hardly reading this. Someone is. In fact…seventeen people today. Yay. I’m famous. 17. Wooot.

So I mentioned bad pop culture references in my last post. (Someone trying to allude to the Karate Kid by wrongfully quoting “Wax on, wax off” as “Wash on, wash off”.) A friend of mine in my writing class two semesters ago said something clever about pop culture references: always use ones that aren’t well known.

How’s this? It’s a short excerpt from my novel. The narrator is reflecting on a movie his girlfriend liked when he’s thinking of what to do with his brother. Can you guess what movie…

Sara had this movie she liked—it was about these two male prostitutes who drove around the Pacific Northwest on a busted motorcycle. They did drugs, slept around with an old German guy, and even ventured into Europe. One of them was a rich kid, set to inherit all this money when he turned twenty-one. He said he’d stop his antics then and make a huge turnaround.

My brother Drew is a rich kid and a borderline alcoholic. He and I drove to the Midwest in a dilapidating, ugly, yellow Dodge. Drew is set to go to the best college in the world when he turns eighteen, and he swears he’ll stop his drinking then. I got to make sure of that—he might end up in Idaho with a man named Hans for all I know. I’m probably letting that movie pervert my judgment, but once you see it in film, shit, you never know what can happen next in reality.

One of my favorite sites is SoulPancake (soulpancake.com). I submitted a question on the site about a year ago, regarding why so many incredible artists succumb to drugs and/or suicide. I’ll sort of reiterate the whole of the question here.

I discuss the topic of artistry with one of my best friends a lot. We decided we both find artistic men extremely attractive. Any kind of artist–a writer, musician, actor (a legitimate one, really) painter. Why? Because they don’t give a shit. Artists are so independent minded and so in tune with their own selves and souls that they couldn’t give a crap what other people think about them. Excuse the liberal speech but that’s so sexy.

I find real artists brilliant. They see things no one else does, and are able to bring those hidden truths to full focus in their work. They reveal the mysteries of humanity and decipher age old dilemmas in 5 minute songs.

Consider the brief list of actors, writers, musicians and painters who have either killed themselves deliberately or drugged themselves (accidentally) to death: Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, River Phoenix, Heath Ledger, Marilyn Monroe and etc. Add to the list the amount of artists who have struggled with addiction and/or depression and the list is enormous.

None of the aforementioned artists were just okay. They were Oscar nominated, critically acclaimed, prize-winning, and in some cases, legends.

My best friend and I came up with this theory: If artists have already understood themselves through the creation of their work, and have already revealed so many things that are difficult for others to show–aren’t they bored? What’s more is, how can they relate to others who don’t possess that same kind of awareness? Wouldn’t they feel lonely?